Those average stats of yours and the op's do not show the full picture of how well (good or bad) jugs are doing and never will do. Not in the way it's been shown in this thread. In all honesty I would very much like to see something from the devs that's updated every fortnight/month to say which classes/specs are over performing/under performing/balanced in their eyes. It would give discussions such as these something better to go on than what we have at the moment..

Huttball might be one sided sometimes but it's entirely possible for one player on the opposing side to make them work for their win. Even if it turns out to be 6-0 you can still have a very fun game.

It's not about rotation's but learning the class. Sure it kills weak mobs quicker but you won't learn as much as you could and probably should do. To get back on topic was the op asking about specs or which utilities to use or both?

If there were a lot more snipers and mercs playing solo q you'd find out who really is the bottom of the leaderboards. Nothing I've seen here has proven the case that jugs are doing the worst in arena's and therefore needs a buff.

No thanks, a snipers defences largely evolve around cc, the more cc immunity there is out there the harder it is for us to survive.

So I'm confused, perhaps you can help me out, exactly what does the little table above meant to prove exactly? Are you really trying to say that going purely on that table assassins need a buff before mercs and snipers? And then there's this one from Savej: Again really? Does this mean that sins need a buff before mercs and snipers because 5 and 12 respectively have a higher averate rating than 78 assassins? If that sounds insane then you need to rethink your logic about why jugs need a buff, if anything those tables show that there's an issue with mercs and snipers. Far lower numbers of those AC's are doing arena's and that's something which should be looked at more closely. Do jugs need a buff? No idea but these tables don't help to prove anything. Where's a proper statistician when you could do with one....someone get hold of Ilmarian!

I tend to use a mix of greens and com mods, can quite often get a very cheep set of greens on the GTN for your character, that should be fine for any armour you can't upgrade using coms.

You're not going to win this one I'm afraid. I fully admit it is a long time and I would be willing to see it reduced if we had some major boosts to our defences. Which would you rather have? At this precise moment in time all that needs to be said from a snipers point of view is trust me....it's needed. If a sniper is out of cover at the wrong time invariably they're dead and at the moment it's all too easy to knock us out of cover. Now you might think otherwise but trust me I'm knocked out of cover quite often. Entrench is the only way we have of protecting ourselves, it's one of our most important defensive skills. You nerf entrench and the basic fact is you significantly hurt out survivability.

No it doesn't it's very much required. I can appreciate how warriors and knights find it against our class but it's the same thing for us and stealth. You increase the cooldown and/or lower the duration and you hurt our survibility even further....and before it's even mentioned there are three specs in the gunslinger/sniper class not just sharpshooter/marksman. When making a change to entrench you have to take all three into account.

He's got almost as many sents as I do snipers!

Fixed that for you

I can't offer anything regarding a guild but just thought I'd say maybe take a look through the guild recruitment sub forum here and the unofficial red eclipse recruitment forum. (link) ps....yay sniper!

It's been quite a while since I leveled a gunslinger so can't remember when they get each companion. I see no reason why you couldn't use HK, although you'll likely have to redo his armour. I did have a go at using him on a toon and he did come with lvl 51 gear....but couldn't use them because he was only lvl 1 Other than that though....sure why not. A healer companion will give you less time between mobs but using a pure dps comp is definitely possible. Have to shake things up a bit now and again so go with whatever you fancy and have fun

With respect, and I genuinely mean that, do you see the mistake in what you've posted? No one is saying that marksman isn't in a good spot and if you have two snipers together who know their class with one of them being marksman then you will do a lot better. What I'm saying is that your viewpoint of how well a sniper doing is inflated. It really gets me to see other snipers saying the class doesn't need any buff when you have engineering which is in very tough spot right now.....still a lot of fun and playable but definitely in a tough spot. There are three specs in our advanced class so please don't go around saying the class is fine when it blatently isn't. Take away some of the burst potential in marksman and you will see a substantial difference and to be perfectly honest....it's only a matter of time before marksman gets nerfed in that sense. For the record....I'm not asking for a marksman nerf I'm just pointing out the obvious.

Cool, what spec?

For the record my fist sniper was leveled with marksman and Es'carli was marksman as well up until that patch (1.3 or around then) when they fixed plasma probe. I understand the plight of marksman veterans prior to 3.0 don't get me wrong. I just don't think it's healthy for almost the entire sniper community bah a few individuals to use that spec over the other two. People are advised these days not to play engineering because it's not viable, because it's dead, useless but that's not the case. It's still a fun spec to play even with all the nerfs we received in 3.0, we need some buffs but it is playable. If by posting this vid (and part 2 when it's ready) a few more people take the time to give engineering a decent try...I'll be happy Came across a couple of engineering/saboteur snipers/slingers on Sunday in midbies and it was nice to see. Very refreshing.

On TRE its always been up and down. I remember when servants of none left the game imp side was pretty dire. I ended up going to rep side for a couple of months. There are a lot of people on this server who play both sides. Balance on a server is always going to be up and down.

There's probably others but that was one change which was desperately needed, don't ever want to see that return...

Sounds like your mind is already made up over engineering/saboteur so probably moot, however check out the playlist for the guide I put together. The spec is not all about aoe there's more to it than that, my entire channel is dedicated to engineering/saboteur. Snap shot and pando...if that's the utility I'm thinking of...i don't rate. I get the theory but they simply aren't for me. Typing from mobile so not able to expand on why at the moment sorry.

If you're on TRE should probably check out the unofficial server forums, you'll find a lot of us there. click for link

I know precisely what you mean, spoken to some friends a bit about this kind of thing before because I'm always surprised at how frustrated they get. Honestly my advise is to think about that kind of match as practice for kiting and using your defensive skills. The more you have that happen the better against it you'll get which will make you better in the long run. You'll have the same issue at lvl 60 as you will in lowbies/midbies with the exception that you'll have all your skills...along with everyone else. Turn that situation into a little game of your own and you'll find yourself having fun

Amazing how people continue to misunderstand what the OP meant. To the OP I'd say when you find yourself in those situations think of it as an opportunity to practice kiting/defending yourself. If you think of it as a challenge and try to gauge how long you last each encounter it can make an otherwise irratating warzone fun. That's the trick I use in such matches and works for me

The actions of a few do not provide proof that hacks are rampant and huttball is now pointless because of it. Also if I remember right the first quote of yours was probably an operative or sniper simply using covered escape. It's well know that when we do this it causes a graphics gltch, not our fault this happens and it certainly is in no way a hack. Asking bio to give us cheats to make it a lvl playing field is....well putting it politely and respectfully funny to say the least.

Granted but the OP was suggesting cheating is more rampant than just one person. I'm interested to know what the OP him/herself has to say

So without nameing anyone (which is against the forum policy) how exactly are people cheating in huttball? Give us some details.